Surgical Feat Surgeons Race Time, Reattach Man`s Hand.

Geza Fakla was a passenger in a Jeep that swerved to avoid a car, slid on its side about 100 yards and rolled a couple of times before coming to a stop early one morning this month.

At least those details are what Fakla has been told. He doesn`t remember.

All he recalls is taking off his seat belt and finding his severed right hand sitting in his lap.

``I looked at my arm and there was just a stump,`` the Boca Raton man said. ``It was wild. I grabbed my hand and got out of the car and laid in the grass. When the paramedics came I remember telling them, `I just want my hand back. I just want my hand back.```

On Saturday, Fakla, 22, left North Broward Medical Center in Pompano Beach with his hand reattached -- and with movement in his fingers.

Just two hours after the accident in Deerfield Beach, at 6 a.m. on Feb. 3, three surgeons operated on Fakla for 10 hours.

Every artery, vein, nerve and tendon was sewn back together with sutures as thin as human hair. The bones were reattached with metal plates.

``It`s pretty unusual for a whole hand to be put back on,`` said Leigh Phillips, the lead surgeon in the procedure. ``I don`t know if it`s ever been done here before.``

Phillips, a plastic surgeon who owns a practice called CosmePlast in Coral Springs with three other doctors, said the hand was amputated just above the wrist bone, which made it easier to reattach.

``It was a favorable amputation,`` he said. ``It was fairly clean and it was fairly straight cut, as opposed to being pulled or stretched. You can`t reattach it if the nerves are stretched.``

And because Fakla and his hand arrived at the hospital soon after the accident, it improved the chances of a successful surgery.

``There`s only a certain amount of time where we can reattach,`` Phillips said. ``We were able to do it soon enough where (the hand) would have a chance of living. If we had waited over six or eight hours, it would have died.``

Phillips said Fakla will have to go through therapy sessions for about a year as the nerves and tendons regrow and reattach themselves.

``Aesthetically, it`s going to look fine,`` Phillips said. ``He`s just going to have a lot of hard work ahead of him to get it working again.``

Fakla, a lifeguard for the city of Boca Raton, said he is thankful for a lot of things.

He is glad his hand was on his lap.

``If I hadn`t had my hand, I would have really lost it,`` he said. ``I would`ve gone looking for it, and would`ve lost a lot of blood.``

Fakla is thankful his friend, Kyle Miller, the driver of the Jeep, knew what to do.

``Kyle was so alert, he took his pants off and made a tourniquet where the hand was severed.``

And he is grateful for Phillips.

``I remember asking the doctor what the chances were of getting my hand back,`` Fakla said. ``He said, `50-50.` After that, I woke up in the intensive care unit and had my hand back. I was pretty happy. I`m so impressed with modern technology, and Dr. Phillips. He`s my hero. He`s amazing.``